Updates on Halladay, Howard, Utley, Thome and All-Star numbers

-Chase Utley and Ryan Howardare both scheduled to play in an extended spring training game on Wednesday. Utley will DH and Howard will hit but will not run, GM Ruben Amaro Jr. said.

-Jim Thomecould be activated before the homestand is over (it ends Thursday). He had not taken ground balls in Clearwater. “It’s too much discomfort for him,” Amaro said. Thome is likely to be just a pinch hitter when he returns. But first, he'll likely DH in the upcoming nine Interleague games, which begin Friday in Baltimore.

-The first tally of All-Star votes were released on Tuesday. Despite having a career year in which he’s hitting .368, Carlos Ruizis fourth in voting among NL catcher. Yadier Molina, Buster Posey and Brian McCann are first, second and third respectively. “From the national standpoint, they probably don’t know [Ruiz] is this good," manager Charlie Manuelsaid. "He probably doesn’t have the exposure like the other ones have. [Posey, McCann, Molina] are probably more popular. At the same time, the voting ain’t over yet. He definitely deserves to be on the All-Star team. I will vote [up to 25 votes]. Then he’s got 25 votes.”

-The Phillies haven’t officially received the second opinion about Roy Halladay’s lat strain, but Amaro said he doesn’t expect a much more serious (if at all) diagnosis. Although he’s still not throwing, he started doing some upper body/shoulder exercises Tuesday. “We’ll find out whether he’s going to start throwing, whether he feels good enough to sart throwing at the three-week mark, and we’ll kind of go from there. But he’s doing pretty well, this morning the report was that he was symptom-free and he was doing some of the exercises, and that’s a good sign.”